


On the Merits of Divination

by Digoutyoursoul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Hermione Granger, Divination, Harry Potter Never Went to Hogwarts, Harry has no clue what's going on, Horcrux Hunting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Indian Harry Potter, JK Rowling? I don’t know her, M/M, On the Run, Racism, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Well - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Digoutyoursoul/pseuds/Digoutyoursoul
Summary: 'The corners of her mouth twitched up at that, but her eyes dropped back to the table just as quickly, and that mournful look returned. This time Harry looked down too, into the dregs of their cups where, stark against the white porcelain, two identical black dogs stared back.“Well, fuck”.'Harry Potter is just your average 16-year-old-psychic working shifts at his technically-unofficially-adoptive grandmother's mystic shop. Well, alright, maybe he's not average, but he's definitely nothing special.Until a bunch of racists in dodgy outfits kidnap him and he has to come to terms with the fact he's apparently famous in certain... eccentric circles, and literally every one of them wants to use him for their own nefarious purposes. Really, all he wants is to get back to his sort-of grandmother and sort-of sister, but the blond git trailing around after him seems to have other ideas.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 118





	1. Harry Potter and the Horrible, Splitting, No-Good Headache

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, this IS yet another Harry-never-went-to-Hogwarts fic! (Yes, I love Hermione Granger's Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run. Yes, if you haven't read that you should absolutely go and read it right now.) 
> 
> This is my first fic so uhhhhh be nice to me ig? This has been rattling around in my head for ages, and lockdown gave me way too much thinking time and not enough impulse control, and now here I am writing things! OK, enjoy!

The incense was giving Harry a headache again. Carina insisted it added to the ‘mystique’ of the shop, whatever that meant, and Harry hadn’t had the heart to argue after how snappy he’d been with her that morning. Of course, he’d immediately felt shit about it and tried to apologise (‘I’m sorry _Nani_ , I just haven’t been sleeping well-’). She’d just swatted his arm with a glint in her eye and told him it was ‘already forgotten, _Beta_ \- of course, if you want to take over my morning readings as an apology I wouldn’t say _no_...’. And now he was stuck in the dim back room of _The Happy Medium (“Tarot while you wait!”)_ , trying to come up with something suitably vague-yet-specific to appease old Mrs Beverley from down the road. 

Mrs Beverley was a regular, and was almost single-handedly keeping the little shop open at this point. Unfortunately, she was one of those patrons who already knew exactly what she wanted to hear, and Harry had quickly learned that the easiest way to deal with her was to just spout some nonsense about The Spirits feeling generous this week and hurry her along. Any guilt he felt about lying to an old widow usually only lasted as long as it took for Mrs Beverley to open her mouth - Priya had been finding excuses to avoid doing her readings for over year now, after a particularly dazzling bit of casual racism had caused her to actually storm out mid-reading.

In short, Harry had a Bad Mood brewing. 

“You should open your heart to romantic advances this week. The Spirits encourage you to look upon an old acquaintance with new eyes.” He slipped in, on behalf of poor Mr Jenning next door. The old man had been attempting to woo Mrs Beverley for months now, and Harry and Priya secretly had a running bet on how long she’d hold out. If she caved by Christmas Harry stood to pocket fifty quid.

“-And my third eye sees mystery and a new start in your week ahead,” He claimed in the most mystical voice he could summon. 

“Do you know, I _have_ been meaning to catch up with the new _Poirot_ s!”

“Er, sure. Maybe you could invite Mr Jenning over and watch them together?” He added hopefully. Then, noting the clock had finally hit 12, he clapped his hands together and started ushering the woman back out to the brightness of the shop with poorly disguised relief. “Right! That’s your thirty minutes, Mrs Beverley, we’ll see you nextweekthankyouokbye!”

As soon as he heard the jingle of the bell over the front door, Harry slumped down against the wall with a sigh, scrubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. _Fucking incense_. The sound of a throat clearing drew his attention back to the doorway, where Priya was sticking her head into the back room with an insufferably smug expression.

“How was Mrs Beverley today, Harry?” She asked with faux innocence. It was all he could do to not curse her out, but Carina had some sort of sixth sense around these things and he didn’t fancy being made to take the afternoon readings as well. 

“Don’t you have lectures on Tuesday mornings, Priya? You’re back awfully early!” He pitched his voice as loud as he could, feeling the start of a shit-eating grin as her eyes widened in dismay. Harry 1, Priya 0.

_Oh FUCK off_ , she mouthed. Harry had to resist the urge to crow in delight. He’d known Priya’s timetable was a little too convenient to be true, taking her out of the house for all their most annoying customers’ standing appointments and leaving Harry to deal with most of them. As Carina’s footsteps started descending the stairs, Priya scrambled to save herself.

“Actually, my lecturer for this module was so impressed with my last assignment she said I didn’t need to come in for this lecture, since I already know all the content for it!” Harry couldn’t suppress a snort this time. Carina rounded the corner with a dubious expression on her face, her crow’s feet crinkling with amusement. 

“Priya dear, if you’re going to lie to your old _Nani,_ at least do me the favour of making it somewhat believable,” Carina grumbled good-naturedly. Harry cackled as Priya’s ears turned pink and she whirled around in outrage.

“Hang on! What’s so unbelievable about me doing well at uni?!” She cried, jabbing a finger out, and then sheepishly retracting it when she caught sight of Carina’s raised eyebrows.

“I think,” said Carina, “you should just be grateful I’ve been turning a blind eye to you skiving off the readings you don’t like, hmm?” Priya’s flush had spread to her whole face now, but as Harry processed that comment his own delight drained away.

“You knew!” He accused Carina, “You knew all this time she’s been lying to avoid those old bats and you still made me take half her appointments!” 

“Harry, darling, you know Priya’s third eye is about as open as Mrs Beverley’s legs.” He _knew_ she’d been tracking Mr Jenning’s ill-fated attempts to woo the old widow, “I thought it might be a better use of your time to get some practice in with your deck since you at least show some aptitude for it.

“Of course, had I known you’d start throwing out any old drivel to get them out the door as quickly as possible, I might have objected a little more.” He had the good grace to try and look contrite at that, but from the look Carina shot him he wasn’t doing a particularly convincing job. 

The bell over the shop door rang out, and Carina ducked through to the main room. Harry and Priya listened in as she effusively greeted whoever had walked in, before calling back for them to “come out here and stop being so rude!”. They reached the doorway at the same time and broke out into a scuffle. Priya won (of course) and Harry ended up sprawled across the floor, before a pair of scuffed shoes came into view. He looked up to a pair of piercing blue eyes and an outstretched hand.

“Oh. Hello, Abe. You alright?” Harry said, awkwardly, as he was pulled back up to his feet. Abe just gave a shrug. Brilliant.

“Tea!” Called Carina, flipping the sign on the door to ‘ _Back - as soon as the Fates allow_ ‘ and crowding everyone upstairs to the kitchen of their little flat. Harry ended up directly opposite Abe as they all shuffled to sit at the kitchen table, and Carina began bustling about with the kettle. He felt a resigned sort of dread meeting the other man’s eyes, something the others seemed immune to as they carried on chattering away. 

It wasn’t that he disliked Abe - in fact, the man had quite possibly saved Harry’s life when he was 10 years old, and he was one of Carina’s oldest friends (Priya had once told Harry that she suspected the two had actually been shagging since school, and Harry hadn’t been able to look Carina in the eye for a week). 

No, there was just something about Abe that put Harry on edge. Maybe it was the way he always looked slightly uncomfortable in his shabby, oddly-fitting clothes, as though he’d somehow ended up in them completely by accident and had no clue how or why he’d acquired them. It put Harry unsettlingly in mind of a much younger version of himself, swimming in Dudley’s old clothes and always a little bit dirty and always feeling like his body wasn’t his own and… well. He didn’t like to dwell on his time with the Dursleys.

Or maybe it was the way Abe’s eyes sometimes seemed to drill into him, like he was searching for something in Harry’s head and could pull it out through sheer force of will. That look always sent him right back to Mrs Figg’s house, to eavesdropping outside the kitchen door as she made three cups of tea with far too much milk and sugar and told Abe ‘ _I didn’t know… realise how bad it really was until... and of course… must have known what he was signing the poor boy up for… all along he must have….’_. Harry had padded back to the overstuffed sofa and sat there picking at the dirt under his ragged nails, feeling horribly like he was in trouble for something until Abe had come out of the kitchen and those piercing eyes had seemed to sift through his head and Harry had felt like all the horrible parts of himself he kept secret were spilling right out of his head and into Abe’s. 

Abe had sat with him and told him nice things like ‘ _you’re not in trouble_ ’ and ‘ _you won’t go back there_ ’ and ‘ _it’s not your fault_ ’. He had taken Harry away from Little Whinging and brought him to Carina. He had saved Harry from a life of abuse and neglect, but sometimes when Harry met his gaze and remembered that day, he wondered if being saved was worth it, when it meant someone else knew all the dreadful dark thoughts he kept locked away deep down where no-one else was meant to find them.

And now (recently, horribly) those eyes had started popping up in his nightmares. He could never remember much, the dreams slipping from his mind the second he grasped for them. A flash of green, or a scream, or - most recently - that familiar shade of icy blue, accompanied by a hatred so strong Harry had woken up breathless and shaking. He didn’t know what it all meant, but Carina had raised him with a healthy belief in the arcane (something he had delighted in after ten years of _magic_ being a dirty word) and he recognised a warning sign when he saw one. 

Priya pinched his arm and he jumped, snapping back to reality. He shot her a glare, but deflated a little when he saw worry in her eyes. Harry felt heat crawl up the back of his neck; he must have been mindlessly staring at Abe as he conversed with Carina for God knew how long. But neither adult seemed to have noticed, they were so deeply entrenched in their discussion. Their tone had become terse and their words punctuated by sharp silences. Harry had never seen them argue before. 

“Reckon Abe’s in the doghouse?” He muttered to Priya, aiming for levity, but missing the mark if her expression was any indication. 

“They’re both worried about us… all these attacks lately,” She told him quietly, “and you know how _Nani_ gets, she’s been even more obsessive than usual with the bloody tea leaves and the dream journals and the tarot spreads. Thinks if she can predict it, she can avert it.” Harry looked down at his tea and felt a rush of guilt at seeing it was, indeed, loose leaf instead of their normal PG Tips. Casting his mind back, he realised Priya was right. Carina had been quietly making cups of loose leaf for the two of them for weeks, sneaking them back to the kitchen before he had a chance to wash up himself, apparently convinced some disaster was about to befall them, and he hadn’t even noticed. 

“I just thought she was being nice,” He said faintly, then felt like even more of a prick when he caught the look Priya shot him. 

“You’re so bloody dense sometimes, Harry,” she scolded, “Have you even seen the news lately?” Harry, already on the defence, felt his hackles raise. Of course he’d seen the news. It was hard not to, when every headline was worse than the one before. Racially motivated attacks up and down the country, whole families going missing, terrorist incidents at an all time high. “There’s people out there who’d like nothing better than to hurt people like us.”

“Fucking hell Priya, I understand what /racism/ is!” He said, and Priya pinned him with a look haunted beyond her 23 years. 

“Do you?”

The venom in her tone was so potent that Harry physically recoiled. She instantly regretted it, he could tell - but she was right, really, wasn’t she?

(Harry remembered the day he had met Priya, when Abe had brought him to _Happy Medium_. She had been 17 to his 10, tall where he was scrawny, and yet she was the first kid Harry met who _looked like him_. She had a t-shirt on, carelessly displaying the painful-looking scars that ran all the way up the outside of her arms. Harry had stared at them. And then, slowly, he had raised his arm to where his hair was plastered down across his forehead, where her eyes already rested like she _knew_. He’d lifted his fringe and she’d reached out a scarred arm to touch the ugly white slash splitting his forehead in two and he’d reached up his other hand, the one not gripping his hair, and he’d rested it on her outstretched arm and they had just stood like that. Harry had felt the urge to laugh, or cry, or do something to break the silence, but she beat him to it.

“Harry Potter,” she had said, his name coming easily like she’d known it for years. “Priya Patil.”

“How do you know that?”

Priya’s gaze had flickered back up to his forehead for a moment, then down to meet his eyes. 

“My grandma told me.” She pointed as she said it, down the stairs to the shop where Abe was still talking to Carina.

“She’s your grandma? I thought she was your mum.”

“My parents are dead. Murdered.” Priya said, carefully casual.

“So’re mine. I don’t know what happened, though.” Again her eyes travelled up to his scar and back down. 

“I suspect the same thing that happened to mine.” 

“And what’s that?” Priya’s head tilted. There was a long pause, like she was weighing every word before she spoke.

“People don’t like… people who’re different to them. It scares them. They feel like they have to prove they’re better. But being different doesn’t work that way. There’s no better or worse, just… different. Do you understand?” She asked like it was important, so Harry considered this, tried it on, measured it against what he knew. It seemed like a huge fuck-you to everything the Dursleys believed in, so naturally he nodded.

“Good.”)

Harry had later pieced together that Priya’s parents were killed less than a year before his own, by the same gang. Harry used to envy her, because she had at least gotten to _know_ her parents before she lost them, and she still had her grandma and he’d heard about an aunt and uncle and some cousins off in Scotland somewhere who probably didn’t hate her, not the way Harry’s relatives hated him.

Now, whenever Harry thinks about it he feels sick. Priya had been home when it happened, just like him. But she had been 8 years old, and that was certainly old enough to remember the whole horrific event. When Harry thought of Priya, he thought of that proud 17 year old who had to explain prejudice to him, calmly, gently, in such simple terms, as though she hadn’t witnessed exactly how terrible human nature could be by just 8 years old.

Did Harry understand racism? Maybe. He had certainly experienced it, even in the years after leaving the Dursleys, after Priya had helped him put a name to that feeling of otherness. But he didn’t think he would ever understand it like Priya did. 

He thought of Mrs Beverley’s throwaway comments and Priya’s excuses and Carina’s easy acceptance of her lying to avoid appointments. He thought of how he’d tried to get her in trouble just that morning for shirking work and came to the conclusion that he was a huge fucking prat. 

And now here was Abe, coming round to check in on them, and Carina who had been frantically brewing them tea for weeks and stealing away the dregs to read at every opportunity, and Priya, who _understood_ and paid attention to these things and must have been on alert for weeks because of the political climate. Harry felt like a right shit. 

He felt a hand land on his, jerking him back out of his thoughts. Priya was staring down into their drained cups, avoiding eye contact, and looked about as miserable as he felt. He lifted her hand to his scarred forehead, placed his own over her arm, in an echo of that first moment of understanding 6 years ago. 

The corners of her mouth twitched up at that, but her eyes dropped back to the table just as quickly, and that mournful look returned. This time Harry looked down too, into the dregs of their cups where, stark against the white porcelain, two identical black dogs stared back. 

“Well, fuck”.


	2. Insert closet joke here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear! Anger! Betrayal! Bad men and even worse fashion choices! It's all here folks!

When Carina taught Harry about Divination, his first thought was that she was completely unhinged. His second thought was _'brilliant!'_. He was 12 at the time and still getting used to his newfound freedom. A couple of years away from the Dursleys meant he took vicious joy in anything Aunt Petunia might have considered deviant (a laundry list of offences that ranged from having the wrong skin colour to putting too much sugar in one’s tea or, God forbid, mentioning _the M word_ ). He had asked in his politest voice if Carina could show him _everything, please_ , and the rest was history. 

Harry had always been particularly fond of Tarot - real Tarot, not those fake readings he gave to Mrs Beverley and her ilk. Something about shuffling the cards, pouring his energy and his intent into each movement, always let him slip into that _in-between_ state where he could detach from his own feelings and prejudices, able to flit between the cards’ meanings with graceful ease. 

He had once tried to explain the feeling to Priya (“Like… like _magic,_ like there’s this distance between you and the physical and you’re surrounded by this warmth and all you need to do is channel it-“) but she’d just looked sad, no matter how much Harry insisted she just needed to practice meditating more and she’d feel it too. Carina had taken him to one side after dinner that night and explained that some things took more than just practice, and Priya just didn’t have the _Sight_ like them and that was fine. Harry had always privately thought that was bullshit, but he had dropped it nonetheless. If Priya knew that he sometimes spotted that sad look on her face when he would absent-mindedly shuffle through his deck and feel the warm current of meditation, well, she never mentioned it, and he never brought it up to her, so it was fine. _Fine_. 

But tea leaves, anyone with eyes and a tasseography book could get the hang of. Maybe not as quickly, or with the same accuracy Harry and Carina got with a Tarot deck, but really it was only a matter of patience, searching for imagery in the leaves and then finding it in a book. Sometimes you didn’t even need to look it up, like when you spotted a /giant fuck-off Grim/ sitting in the bottom of yours and your sister’s teacups. Harry was starting to think he should have paid more attention to his Tarot deck lately, because _really, fuck_. Priya evidently felt the same, if her sudden despondency was any indication. 

Abe and Carina had stopped arguing to look over at Harry’s profanity, Carina with a soft admonishment and Abe with an amused twitch of his lips. Harry couldn’t help catching his eye and had to push down another flash of that alien, burning fury. Whatever Abe saw in his face quickly sobered his amusement. He half-lifted an arm as though to reach across the table and steady him, but Harry felt himself flinch back involuntarily. Abe sighed and turned back to Carina. 

“Right then, I’ll be off. Consider it, please. They’re restless.” He cut his eyes back to Harry for a moment, “It’ll only be so long before they-“

“Aberforth!” That was Carina’s _stop-that-right-now-or-you’ll-be-on-store-duty-for-the-next-month_ voice. Harry was intimately acquainted with it. He felt another pulse of anger at the implication.

“Stop it!” He snapped, “I’m not a _child._ Stop acting like I’m this, this fragile little _kid_ who doesn’t know what’s going on all the time! I have just as much a right to know about whatever it is as Priya does. I’ve left school! I’m an adult! I should be the _man of the house_ \- ow!“ and ok, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it, judging by how hard Priya had just pinched his arm in retaliation, but still. Aberforth chimed in, unabashed by Harry’s outburst.

“You’ll have to make a decision soon, Caz.” _Caz?_ , Harry mouthed to himself, nose wrinkling. “Things are coming to a head and Priya’s enough of a target on her own. It’s a shit decision, and you know I trust them less than you do, but I’d pick the lesser of two evils while you still have that choice.” 

He pulled out a slip of paper and slid it across to Carina, who unfolded it one-handed against the table, still cradling her teacup with her left. She let out a hiss through her nose at whatever she saw, and Harry craned his neck as subtly as he could to try and get a glimpse. 

“You _told_ -“

“No. He doesn’t know. I received this yesterday, with instructions to _destroy after reading_.” Abe snorted. “He’s a melodramatic old bastard, and I’d never- but he knows these things better than anyone, and if he’s concerned for _me_ , then I’m inclined to believe the rumours about them rounding up-“

“I have managed for 6 years to provide-“ Carina cut in again, lowering her tone and sliding the paper closer to herself when she noticed Harry still peering over. Harry scowled. 

“Once again, I. Am. Right. Here.”

_“Nani,_ maybe Abe is right. If Ishaan is really taking the twins out of school-“

“Seriously! Is anyone even listening to me?”

“Just, keep the note at least. Keep it safe-“

Harry could feel his head pounding and his anger approaching something Priya had once termed the ‘proper strop event horizon’. His hands were almost vibrating, itching for something to do. He pressed his palms to the table to stop them.

“AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS _NO FUCKING CLUE-"_

“FINE! Fine,” snapped Carina, surprising Harry enough to shake him from his anger. The room fell still, and Harry realised the force of his shaking hands must have had the whole table shuddering under his weight, abandoned teacups clinking in their saucers. 

“You’ll explain? All this…” Harry waved his hand around vaguely, “secrecy?”

“Not everything,” She said with another warning look to Priya and Abe when they opened their mouths, “but we should have a safety net. Just in case.”

Carina shifted in the silence and Harry thought he had never seen her look so old before. Her worry cast harsh shadows on her face as she re-adjusted in her chair to lean forward. She passed the paper over the table to Priya, who merely raised her eyebrows and nodded once as she read, apparently taking it as confirmation of something she already knew. Priya shot Harry a look when she spotted him leaning over her shoulder, but Carina waved a hand in resignation. 

Priya shifted, letting Harry finally get a look at the paper, but he only found himself more confused at the single sentence there in narrow handwriting:

_The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London._

Harry snorted. 

“And what's _the Order of the Phoenix_ when it's at home?” He asked the room at large. There was another silence as Carina seemed to weigh her words. A car backfired outside, breaking the silence, and three heads swivelled to look at the kitchen window. Harry felt Priya’s hand land back on his arm. An unspoken conversation seemed to pass between Carina and Abe, who pushed himself up from the table to peer out at the street through their net curtains. 

“What?” Harry asked, as Priya’s grip tightened. “What now?"

Carina’s lips pressed together into a thin line before she spoke.

“Both of you, to Harry’s room. Do you have the address memorised?” Priya nodded, already getting to her feet, but Harry just felt hopelessly lost. “Harry, _Beta_ , take the note, memorise it, destroy it.” It was all Harry could do to snag the paper as Priya tugged him up and towards the door by his arm. Carina caught Priya’s other hand briefly as she passed. “It could be nothing.”

Priya looked about as convinced by this as Harry felt. He glanced over his shoulder as Priya pulled him out into their narrow hallway. Abe was still staring intently out at the street, the line of his back growing more tense by the second, and Carina stood to join him. The Grims looked back at Harry from the teacups on the table, taunting him. 

He turned and followed Priya to his little box of a room, right at the end of the hall. She shut the door and leaned briefly against it with a sigh before turning to him. 

“Right. I need you to listen to me, Harry. Keep this covered,” she snatched his hand away from his hair, licked her palm, and plastered his fringe down against his forehead. Harry let out an indignant squawk and tried to bat her away, but fell still when he saw how serious she was. 

“And hurry up and memorise that,” she pointed to the note, which was crumpled, forgotten, in his clenched fist. 

“ _Didi_ , can you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“Okay, okay. Alright. So. Hm-“ Harry resisted the urge to rub his now-covered forehead as she dithered. “Okay. The people who killed your parents, who killed _mine_ , are… well, “

“I thought we established that I already know what hate crimes are,” Harry interrupted.

“They’re not- well I suppose it is a sort of racism, but these aren’t, like, BNP racists, Harry. They’re- well, you’re-“

There was a knock at the front door, the one leading from the main shop to the staircase up to the flat, and Priya fell unnaturally still. Harry felt like he ought to hold his breath. A second knock sounded, and he recognised Carina’s footsteps as she started making her way downstairs. 

Priya grabbed him again - and really, Harry was getting a bit sick of being manhandled today - and started shoving him across the room, snatching his Tarot deck from his back pocket and slipping the crumpled note inside, before tucking the whole thing back in his pocket.

“Just- they only know I’m here, noone knows _where_ you are, so just. Stay. Put.” Harry looked up to see his wardrobe right in front of him and realised what Priya was about to do.

“What? No! Absolutely not!” She clamped a hand over his mouth, wrenching the cupboard door open with her other arm and resolutely ignoring Harry as he tried to bite her hand in a last-ditch effort to get free. The sound of conversation drifted up from the bottom of the stairs, Carina’s polite tone a contrast to the harsh voices of whoever was at the door. 

Priya was hissing instructions at him as she bullied him into the open cupboard inch by inch.

“That note, don’t let anyone else see it, but if something happens to- to Abe, or me, or, or, _Nani,_ just, try and get there, okay?” The voices downstairs got louder, and closer, as whoever was there seemed to be pushing their way upstairs, “We’ll meet back there, whatever happens, and until then you just need to stay put and stay _quiet_.“ And with a final push, Harry was squashed flat on his arse in his cupboard, the door forced shut behind him, and oh, didn't this feel familiar. He swallowed the half-hysterical laugh that bubbled in the back of his throat and strained his ears trying to hear what was going on in the kitchen. 

Abe seemed to have joined the conversation, sounding terse. He could just about make out the odd word but the two strangers could have been speaking another language for all he could understand. 

“You’re……….. hog’s head…before,”

“…is she?”

“The….. it’s none of…..”

“If….. _squib_ …” At that, Harry heard a sharp intake of breath from Priya across the room. He plastered himself to the inside of the cupboard doors to try and peek through the crack but he could only see Priya’s feet where she leaned against the wall, eavesdropping. 

Two cracks sounded outside, too close together to be a coincidence. Priya started edging across the room to look out of Harry’s window, then dropped into a crouch with a hissed “Fuckfuckfuck” as something smashed through the glass. A vicious laugh drifted in from outside. Harry’s eyebrows knit together. His room overlooked their ‘garden’, a sad-looking square of concrete behind the shop with a few plant pots and no pedestrian access, so how could anyone get close enough to chuck something through his window? 

The conversation in the kitchen had paused at the sound of shattering glass. A set of heavy footsteps started tramping down the hall towards them, followed by a shout from Carina, then a loud thump from the kitchen. Abe let out a yell and Harry heard a scuffle erupt. He strained his ears for the sound of Carina’s voice but could only hear the footsteps continuing towards his room and the struggle between Abe and whoever was still in the kitchen. He had a horrible feeling he knew what that thumping sound was. 

Priya was still crouching by the window in front of Harry’s cupboard, so he could see her shift to grab a piece of glass from the floor and shuffle back towards the door with a grimace. The footsteps stopped outside the room for a moment, and the man in the hall muttered something. 

The door exploded inwards. A pair of heavy-looking boots stood in the doorway for a moment, before toppling backwards as Priya launched herself at the man. 

“Argh- fucking- bitch! Get- _incarcerous_!“ Priya was thrown back towards the window, collapsing on the carpet as ropes snapped around her seemingly out of nowhere. She’d dropped her improvised weapon as she hit the floor. Something twisted in Harry’s gut as he spotted the blood trailing down from her palm where she’d gripped it too tight. His own hands were shaking again. 

The man loomed over her as he approached. Harry could feel his fury like it was a physical force around him, the coats around him shuddering on their hangers. He tugged at the ends of his hair. The wardrobe doors shivered in time with his fingertips. Priya’s gaze flickered to the wardrobe for a moment. 

“Don’t. Stop it. Stay there.” She snapped, thin-lipped. She was looking back up at the man, who let out a shout of laughter, but Harry knew the command was aimed at him. 

“ You think you can tell me what to do? Little fucking _squib_? You’re dirt. Worse than a fucking _muggle_. I’d be doing you a favour if I killed you right h-“

Harry saw red. The wardrobe was shaking to pieces around him and he could do nothing to stop it even if he wanted to. Which, God, _fuck staying put_ , he wanted nothing more than to smash this man's face in for hurting Priya, for hurting _Carina_. The wardrobe door splintered, sending shards of wood flying out at Priya and the man. She looked miraculously unscathed, but the man was struck in the face hard enough to knock him sprawling back with a cry, a gash the length of Harry’s hand across his forehead. Something went flying from the man’s hand and rolled across the floor. 

Priya was yelling something at Harry as he advanced. He looked down at the stunned figure on the floor and felt his eyebrows fly up. He stopped short. The man had been reaching for something on the floor, but one glance up at Harry stopped him in his tracks. For a moment the two of them stared at each other equally confused.

At his top and bottom the man looked like a typical skinhead, complete with shaved skull and steel toe capped docs. The gash across his forehead looked nasty, a parody of Harry’s own scar. His middle was - well. He looked like he’d got lost in a fancy dress shop. He wore a fluorescent police vest which at first glance looked almost convincing, until Harry noticed that the handcuffs and radio strapped to his front looked distinctly plasticky, and the identification tag seemed to be misspelled, reading _POLECE_. Beneath the vest was a Lonsdale polo, layered over something that looked suspiciously like a witch halloween costume, a long flowing black dress covering his bulky body down to his ankles. Atop his head was a tall, old fashioned police helmet, the likes of which he’d only ever actually seen on children’s tv characters. It seemed they were dealing with some bizarre faction of the EDL who disguised themselves as dyslexic policemen and wore dresses. Harry wasn’t sure what to do with this information. 

Priya’s foot hooked round his ankle and sent him down to the floor before he could voice his confusion. A streak of red light shot past where his head had been not seconds ago and left a singed mark on the wall where it hit. The man was still staring at Harry with his mouth hanging open. 

“You’re…Harry Potter?” 

“Er,” Harry replied eloquently, but the man seemed to take that as confirmation, a grin starting to spread across his face.

"Well, isn't it just my lucky day?"

He drew his sleeve up to reveal a grotesque tattoo of a skull and snake, its dark lines standing out as though they had been carved into his forearm. The skin around it looked infected, red and swollen and _writhing_ , and Harry’s forehead went from a pounding ache to feeling like it would split open any second, like he was the one who’d been hit square in the face with half a wardrobe door. He thought he might be screaming in pain, but it was hard to tell with the blood rushing in his ears. The man lifted a trembling finger to the skull on his skin. 

Priya was yelling something to someone over Harry’s head, and he swung his head up to see Abe in the bedroom doorway, Carina’s body (not dead, please not dead) hefted over one shoulder and his other arm extended towards the man on the floor. He shouted something and the man slumped over, his finger still resting on his tattoo. 

Abe was still talking. Harry couldn’t understand, could barely hear let alone parse the words. He watched his mouth move with a detached sort of horror as Abe shifted to point his arm - which, Harry noted hazily, seemed to be holding a wooden twig - directly at Harry’s face. Their eyes met for a moment and Harry remembered his dreams, the pure hate that hit him whenever he saw that shade of blue, his and Priya’s tea leaves spelling their doom not half an hour ago. A stinging pain erupted across his face, and then something was forcing him back, back, back, past Priya who was still bound on the floor, yelling something he couldn’t understand, towards the open window. 

The back of his head hit the windowpane which must have knocked something loose in his brain, because suddenly he was seeing double, triple, _octuple_ , as more figures in bizarre outfits appeared in the room out of nowhere. And he was still being pushed backwards. A small part of his mind was wondering how Abe was shoving him out of a window from across the room, but a much larger part was still preoccupied with the fact _Abe was shoving him out of a fucking window_.

He remembered Carina explaining Divination to him at 12 over a sugary cup of tea. ' _Sometimes we can see what Fate has in store, and sometimes we can use that to nudge ourselves in another direction. More often than not, we only really understand what Fate is telling us after it's already happened. A good Seer knows this, accepts that they cannot change the past, moves on. That's the nature of Divination.'_ Harry had been enraptured at the time. He'd looked down at his cup and spotted a clover. _Good luck. Happiness. Prosperity._

Harry's last thought before he fell was that Fate clearly had it in for him.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so Carina and Priya are Indian and speak (some?) Hindi. From what I've found online (and please correct me if I'm wrong), 'Beta' means son but is also just used as a general term of endearment which an older person might use for a young(er) man or boy.
> 
> 'Nani' is used for a maternal grandmother, and since Carina is Priya's mum's mum that's what she's always been to Priya. I'm not entirely sure if it would be correct for Harry to call Carina 'Nani' since she's not really, but in my head he didn't know anything about his own Indian heritage when he arrives with them, let alone the intricacies of Hindi endearments. So he's eager to pick up whatever he can, wants to fit into his new little family, and starts copying Priya.


End file.
